Talk About Risk It! Or Regret It!…
After reading one of my email newsletters (they’re free btw here at DebbieNigro.com) where my headline was my question “What are you going to do with TODAY?”
James (Jim) Flaherty a subscriber replied to my email:
“About to leave (Mon Morning) for a 19 day 11-flight trip, visiting Flagstaff, AZ; Las Cruces, NM; and Houston and San Antonio before landing in the Baja of Mexico to teach a Modern Elder Workshop on THE BLUE ZONES, where there are more centenarians than anywhere else in the world. Trust you are well. Good column today. xo Jim
Jim Flaherty is a former ad agency guy, entrepreneur and writer. I made friends with Jim after randomly featuring his book on my show, which I randomly found on an old table, in a random old general store, in an old section of an old town in upstate NY. The only thing I won’t call old is Jim – even though he’s 89. This guy’s ageless! His Book ‘Embrace Your Age’ is an inspiration to many.
I was exhausted just reading about the trip he had planned. I asked Jim to call into my show from the airport while waiting for his first flight. I wanted to know how the hell an 89-year-old was gonna do all that airport walking? I couldn’t! LOL
Jim said: “The only part of me that really doesn’t function as well as I expect it to, because I always expect everything to work perfectly, are my legs. I can walk around the house, I can walk around an office, I can walk onto a stage and give a speech but I’ve had three surgeries starting with one bad surgery in Mexico years ago on my right le,g and now my left leg is just being 89 years old and tired. So I find when I get to an airport, and it’s a mile or a half a mile between one thing to another, I have to have a wheelchair. And of course, it really, basically, it pisses me off because I never did.”
I was wondering how this 89-year-old was going to handle all those flights?
“I don’t mind the fact that I’m going to have 11, I’m going to have 11 flights in the next 19 days. That doesn’t bother me. I’m fine on a plane.”
Was this 89-year young guy going to rent a car and drive himself around the country in between flights?
“Yeah, I drive fine. I’m a good driver. I’m okay behind the wheel.”
I wanted to know more about that ‘Modern Elder Academy’ I’d read about, and Jim’s workshop he was giving on the Blue Zones.
(If you don’t already know, a blue zone is a region in the world where people are claimed to have exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 80 due to a lifestyle combining physical activity, low stress, rich social interactions, a local whole-foods diet, and low disease incidence.)
Jim said:
“The founder, Chip Conley, is a wonderful, wonderful human being. Chip, who was going through his own kind of midlife crisis in his 50s and saw so many of his friends just at the end of their rope, decided, God, there’s nothing for people going through what he called the messy middle. And they put a long age range on it, ranging from 35 to 75. People are going through the messy middle with one transition or another at all of those ages. So he put together this academy.
“And the reason it ended up with the name Modern Elder Academy is that the Airbnb boys who were all, you know, well, they weren’t 12 years old, but they might have been, they were 20, 22, 23 years old, you know, when they started Airbnb, they didn’t know their ass from their elbow, but they had a wonderful idea. And they, they asked Chip to come aboard, to tell them about hospitality, because he had owned a chain of hotels out in San Francisco. And, yeah, and one of them one day said, gosh, Chip, you’re our modern elder. Because he was at that point like 52. And he thought, That’s an interesting point of view of modern elders.”
Jim wants everybody in the world to look up Modern Elder Academy and put their name on the free mailing list. He said you get a free daily blog that is worth its weight in gold. And he said they have free monthly webinars that are just terrific. The workshops are too, adding that the workshops aren’t for free, but he said he read the blog for two years before he signed up for one.
Jim said:
“Fell madly head over heels in love with the whole concept, went back eight months later for my second workshop and now they’ve invited me to help facilitate workshops.”
Jim sent me a link to a recent interview he did on the talk show Briggs On Books.
From what I’ve learned now about those Modern Elder Workshops … they seem to get people unstuck and give them clarity for their what’s next. Might interest some of you or someone you know.
Meanwhile goodness knows what’s next for 89-year dynamo Jim Flaherty. Senior Ninja Warrior Games? LOL Not sure but Jim wrote me a follow up note, “I’m wild (again) trying to triple my output so I can keep up with myself”!
Enjoy listening to this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
9
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
3
0:00:03
Can you get to my soul? Can we promise you won’t let go? All the things that I need All the things that you need You can make it seem so real Cause you can’t deny
3
0:00:18
You blow my mind Baby, that’s your body I should’ve known, so natural Cause you can’t deny You blow my mind Can I see you, baby?
3
0:00:30
Every just once Okay, it’s my turn to enter. Hey everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro. Good to have you guys with me today on this show that I produce with a lot of heart and love and now I…
8
0:00:49
A lot of hard work actually.
3
0:00:50
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do a lot of work to get this done.
1
0:00:54
Most of my work is done in the morning and I do hours and hours of research every day to keep up with everything and it goes on all day long because when you have your own business you know it never does stop. So I’m very grateful for my sponsors. I have some wonderful new sponsors.
1
0:01:24
One is Gunite Pools of Westchester and Vinnie Grappa Pools. Vinnie is, I think about this guy all the time, he’s so humble, but he’s like the pool guy to the stars, really. He’s amazing. People actually fly him around, design their pools, backyards. He’s so excited when he gets to do that.
1
0:01:44
50-year-old, family-run, licensed pool design and service company, now expanding beyond Westchester into Greenwich and Fairfield counties. They even fly him around nationally to design pools on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, I swear. Anyway, the ultimate backyard designers, new construction, renovations, hot tub service and outdoor lighting.
1
0:02:07
Check them out at gunitepoolsofwestchester.com. And also, my other wonderful sponsor, woman-owned Marcy Manfredonia’s Nationwide Maintenance Services. Unbelievable that she’s had clients like CVS, all the way to the United States Postal Service, a lot of happy homeowners, leader in the field of corporate maintenance services and residential, commercial and industrial construction.
1
0:02:30
She does all kinds of design, power washing. I mean, come on, it’s unbelievable. Nationwide Maintenance, you can get the job done at an affordable price. Check them out, nationwidemaintenance.com.
Okay, well, I hope that we’re going to have my guest. I’m not sure we’re going to reach him because I forgot to say who was going to call who.
1
0:02:48
He’s supposedly in an airport and I talked about him earlier on the show. Bobby Engineer is my guest anywhere near.
4
0:02:54
I have your world traveler here.
7
0:02:56
Well, not world travel, but Jim.
6
0:02:59
It’s very interesting.
2
0:03:01
The airport at this hour is very quiet. I’m used to taking early flights, you know, which would mean we have to get to the airport by six o’clock in the morning when it’s packed. Now I’m taking a flight that doesn’t leave.
1
0:03:13
I was hoping you would show up. I gave you a big build up. This is everybody. This is James Flaherty. We made friends. I had written about him some time ago about the new American idol for me is this guy who
1
0:03:44
is 88, I think he’s 89 now. The reason I came across James Flaherty because I saw a book he wrote that was on a table in a little general store in Armenia, New York and I was captivated by it and I bought the book and invited him on the show and we’re best friends. Now James subscribes to my newsletter and always tells me I do a good job and I’m like so flattered because he’s a prolific writer and now responds to the last week’s newsletter once again, what are you going to do with
1
0:04:08
today and he writes me this like I’m about to leave on a 19-day flight. I’m like you’re 89, where are you going? Where are you going Jim?
5
0:04:17
Well, where am I going?
2
0:04:18
Let’s say today I’m going, this first flight goes to Phoenix and then I change to a flight to Flagstaff. I spent four days in Flagstaff and then I leave, when you’re in this neck of the woods, everything either goes through Dallas or, so there are a lot of little flights. I’m going to fly from Flagstaff to Phoenix, to Dallas, to El Paso. And in El Paso I’ve rented a car and I’m driving to Las Cruces, New Mexico to see old friends. And then after a few days there I drive down to El Paso and go El Paso to Dallas, back to Houston, spend
2
0:04:54
four days in Houston and then nonstop from Houston to San Antonio for a few days and then I fly to the Baja where I’m teaching a workshop for a modern elder academy, a workshop on the blue zones.
1
0:05:11
I don’t know what he said about them but the blue-tongued deer, or the Pindinarians. Sure. Yeah. Anywhere in the world, everybody’s a hundred. You have to follow what they’re eating, what they’re doing. I’m fascinated with it.
1
0:05:23
Fascinated with it.
4
0:05:24
Damn, people.
2
0:05:25
They have me there because I’m close. I’m not that close. I’ll only be 89 in a couple of months. But other than that, everything’s fine.
1
0:05:35
I try not to be too intense about travel. No, I want to talk to you about running around. I get hyper when I think about how am I going to make sure I have the right shoes when I
2
0:05:51
have to take one flight because how much walking there is in all the airports. How are your legs at 89? You do all this walking? The only part of me that really doesn’t function as well as I expect it to because I always expect everything to work perfectly are my legs. I can you know walk around the house, I can walk around an office, I can walk onto a stage and give a speech but I’ve had three surgeries starting with one
2
0:06:17
bad surgery in Mexico years ago on my right leg and now my left leg is just of being 88 years old and tired. So I find when I get an airport, it’s a mile or a half a mile between one thing to another. I have to have a wheelchair. And of course, it really, basically, it pisses me off because I never did. But I find I have to because what I can’t do is make that walk anymore. I just can’t do it. I don’t mind the fact that I’m going to have 11, I’m going to have 11 flights in the next 19 days. That doesn’t bother me. I’m fine on a plane,
1
0:07:01
but I can’t handle airports. Listen, the average person in good health has trouble getting through the airport. Who are these people that think people can walk a half a mile or a mile dragging kids in suitcases like it’s no problem. Didn’t anybody think that through? I can’t wait for that one piece in the airport where they give you five inches of automatic walkway
1
0:07:23
where you can just stand on it and go like a two-second, two miles an hour faster. Why don’t they put them through the whole airport?
2
0:07:29
I did all that when I was young and when the kids were young. We traveled a lot, back and forth. I just can’t do it now. It annoys me but hell, I can handle it.
1
0:07:43
When you say you’re going to be driving from point A to point B, can you drive? Are you going to rent a car?
2
0:07:47
Yeah, I drive fine. I’m a good driver. I’m okay behind the wheel.
1
2
0:08:20
Radio. them through the founder, Chip Conley, who is a wonderful, wonderful human being. Chip, going through his own kind of midlife crisis in his 50s, and saw so many of his friends just at the end of their rope, decided, God, there’s nothing for people going through what he called the messy middle. And they actually put a long age range on it, ranging from 35 to 75.
2
0:08:53
People are going through the messy middle with one transition or another at all of those ages. So he put together this academy. And the reason it ended up with the name Modern Elder Academy is that the Airbnb boys who were all, you know, well, they weren’t 12 years old, but they might have been, they were 20, 22, 23 years old, you know, when they started Airbnb, they didn’t know their ass from their
2
0:09:23
elbow, but they had a wonderful idea. And they, they asked Chip to come aboard, to tell them about hospitality, because he had owned a chain of hotels out in San Francisco. And, yeah, and one of them one day said, gosh, Chip, you’re our modern elder. Because he was at that point like 52. And he thought, That’s an interesting point of view of modern elders.
2
0:09:48
So anyway, you go there and besides a daily, I want everybody in the world to write modernelderacademy.com and request, put their name on the free mailing list and you get a free daily blog that is worth its weight in gold. Oh wow. And then they have free monthly webinars that are just terrific. Then they have the workshops. The workshops aren’t for free but I can
2
0:10:17
tell you I read the blog for two years before I signed up for a workshop. Fell madly head over heels in love with the whole concept, went back eight months later for my second workshop and now they’ve invited me to help facilitate workshops.
1
0:10:32
All right, well that is a perfect way to end our conversation because I know those workshops get people unstuck and if you’re teaching, they can’t be. Oh, they really do. Yeah, it’s amazing. Jim, James Flaherty, I’m in love with you and your spirit and all you do and I’m your biggest fan so be safe, have an amazing trip and report back when you come back, okay?
2
0:10:57
I shall, Deb. Thanks so much.
1
0:10:59
Stay safe. You gotta love this guy. Go check out his website. I’ll put everything up so you know how to get in touch with him. And I’ve also put up some stuff about the Modern Elder Academy so if you need to be inspired, it’s amazing. You can either join him beachside in the Baja or in the Creative Corridor of Santa Fe, those two campus locations.. All right, back in just a moment, one more story on the Debbie Nigro show.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
